Mirko Vucinic tends to have a greater impact when Francesco Totti is absent. Photograph: Maurizio Brambatti/EPA

No player is an island, entire of itself. Good players, whatever tired pundits may say, do not find a way of playing together simply by virtue of them being good players. Their quality can only be measured by their effectiveness within the system of which they are part, and that is why money alone will never guarantee success. Team-building, constructing a cohesive and coherent whole, will always be key.

So when Arsène Wenger, after Saturday's goalless draw with Sunderland, spoke of the need for Arsenal to find "the right balance" he was, in a sense, uttering the truest of truisms. Sir Alex Ferguson then picked up the term in criticising Wenger's transfer policy. Wenger was speaking of broadbrush distinctions between attacking and defensive outlook: in Arsenal's first 15 league games of the season they scored 1.80 goals per game and conceded 1.27; in the last 11 they have scored 1.00 goal per game and conceded 0.54.

That, fairly evidently, is the result of a policy change – the full-backs, for instance, are very evidently less adventurous now – and the suggestion is that that has now gone too far in the other direction: sloppiness has become not merely stability, but predictability. The intriguing thing, as the Champions League begins again tonight, is that Wenger's side will face a Roma team themselves struggling to come to terms with an issue of balance, although their conundrum is more specific in nature.

In the two-and-a-half seasons since he joined Roma, Mirko Vucinic has scored 30 goals in all competitions. Of those, 19 have come since 1 March last year. While acknowledging that goals are not the only means of measuring a striker, there were those a year ago who suggested that the player, who as a 21-year-old banged in 19 in 20 league starts in a season for Lecce, probably should be scoring more.

There was an obvious explanation, and it has been underlined by the nature of those last 19 goals. Only eight of them have been scored while Francesco Totti has been on the pitch, which given they play together more often than not is a striking difference.

The issue, of course, is partly positional. Roma coach Luciano Spalletti was a pioneer in using a player such as Totti as the head in a 4-2-3-1, frequently creating a central attacking vacuum that encouraged great fluidity. That meant Vucinic operating in the line of three, something that had never been his natural game. Totti's injury problems this season, though, led to a change of shape, with Vucinic being deployed in a central role in a 4-3-1-2.

It's been in that position that he's really thrived, and it's arguable that nobody has been so instrumental in Roma's rise from the relegation zone to the top four than the Montenegrin. His old nickname, "the Balkan Maradona", was always related more to his status as his nation's greatest player than his playing style, but "the Snake" nickname he picked up at Lecce suddenly began to seem apposite again.

Vucinic is not particularly good in the air and not does not hold the ball up especially well, but he makes up for those deficits with a sinewy cunning. He may still be too much of a poacher to meet the standards of universality set by Valeriy Lobanovskyi, but there is more to his game than just goalscoring: he is, perhaps, a poacher-plus, blessed with great close technique and an ability to retain possession. It is indicative of the value Roma place on Vucinic that they are already negotiating a two-year extension to his contract despite his present deal not expiring until 2011.

Since Totti's return, Spalletti has tended to use him and Vucinic together in tandem in the 4-3-1-2, but although Vucinic has scored six goals in his last seven games, including the stunning volley against Genoa, the suspicion is that Roma have lost a certain fluency. For as good as Roma were in the 3-0 win over Genoa, they were poor in the 3-0 defeat to Atalanta.

It may be that in time Totti and Vucinic will form an understanding, but there is a concern, particularly in Montenegro, that the issue is in part psychological. Vucinic was an early developer, becoming the youngest ever player in the Yugoslav league by making his debut for Sutjeska Niksic as a 16-year-old. He was spotted by Pantaleo Corvino, then the sporting director of Lecce, and moved to Italy at 17.

The relocation went relatively smoothly, thanks, at least in part, to the influence of Corvino. Vucinic was noted for his fiery personality, and picked up a five-month ban after abusing a referee while playing for Lecce in a youth game. Corvino, determined to straighten out his protégé, insisted that every morning during that five months, Vucinic should turn up at the club and open his office at eight in the morning.

Montenegrin journalists who have followed his career closely suggest that, as he has matured, so Vucinic has become increasingly introverted. Their suspicion is that, although Vucinic recognises the pre-eminence of Totti, the man Roma fans hail as the Emperor, and is prepared to work with it, he is more comfortable when Totti is not there, when he can be the main striker, both literally and figuratively.